Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Eunice Kennedy Shriver was a member of one of the most prominent families in American politics and a trailblazer in the effort to improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.

A sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy and the mother-in-law of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Mrs. Shriver never held elective office. Yet she was no stranger to Capitol Hill and some view her work on behalf of the mentally retarded, including the founding of the Special Olympics, as the most lasting of the Kennedy family's contributions.

Senator Edward Kennedy said in an interview in October 2007: "You talk about an agent of change - she is it. If the test is what you're doing that's been helpful for humanity, you'd be hard pressed to find another member of the family who's done more."

As an example he cited the Opening Ceremony of the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, where a crowd of 80,000 cheered as President Hu Jintao welcomed more than 7,000 athletes to China, a country that had a history of severe discrimination against anyone who was born with disabilities.

Mrs. Shriver's official efforts on behalf of people with mental retardation began after she became the executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation in 1957. The foundation was established in 1946 as a memorial to her oldest brother, who was killed in World War II. Under Mrs. Shriver's direction, it focused on prevention of mental retardation and improving the ways in which society deals with people with intellectual disabilities.

"In the 1950s, the mentally retarded were among the most scorned, isolated and neglected groups in American society," Edward Shorter wrote in his book "The Kennedy Family and the Story of Mental Retardation." "Mental retardation was viewed as a hopeless, shameful disease, and those afflicted with it were shunted from sight as soon as possible."

The foundation was instrumental in the formation of the President Kennedy Committee on Mental Retardation in 1961, development of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (which is now named for Mrs. Shriver) in 1962, the establishment of a network of mental retardation research centers at major medical schools across the United States in 1967 and the creation of major centers for the study of medical ethics at Harvard and Georgetown Universities in 1971.

In 1968, the foundation helped plan and provided financing for the First International Special Olympics Summer Games, held at Soldier Field in Chicago that summer.

Just weeks after her brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy had been killed, Mrs. Shriver said in her address at the opening ceremony: "The Chicago Special Olympics prove a very fundamental fact, the fact that exceptional children - children with mental retardation - can be exceptional athletes, the fact that through sports they can realize their potential for growth."

The first Special Olympics brought together 1,000 athletes from 26 states and Canada for competition. In December 1968, Special Olympics Inc. was established as a non-profit charitable organization. Since then the program has grown to more than 1.3 million athletes in more than 150 countries.

In an interview with CBS News in 2004, Mrs. Shriver's son Robert said: "My mom never ran for office and she changed the world. Period. End of story."

In 1963, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was seized by the interesting if perhaps counterintuitive notion that competitive sports might actually enlarge the self-esteem of mentally retarded people whom society had officially shielded from the challenges of normal life.

Despite the long philanthropic association that members of the Kennedy family have had with the issue of mental retardation, they have rarely spoken publicly about Rosemary, the eldest daughter of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, born retarded in 1918 into a family of brilliant overachievers.

AT a time when the ancient ideals of the Olympic Games have been obscured by politics and commercialism, many people have asked about the philosophy propelling the amazing progress of the Special Olympics.

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Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and the founder of the Special Olympics, was injured in a car accident on Cape Cod. Mrs. Shriver, 79, fractured a leg and underwent an operation at Cape Cod Hospital on Thursday....

A member of one of the most influential political clans in American history, Eunice Kennedy Shriver never held elective office. Yet many view her work on behalf of the mentally retarded as the most lasting of the Kennedy family’s contributions.